Dental floss is dispensed from a wide variety of containers and dispensers. Most common floss dispensers are available in a rectangular package having a sideways mounted, circular spool of floss material which dispenses the dental floss through a hole formed in the top of the package past a cutting blade. The top of the package and the cutting blade are generally protected by a hinged lid as is well-known in the prior art. A particular successful example of this basic design, which is taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,156,311, and D-339,426, includes a view-window through which the amount of floss in the container can be monitored. Since floss is dispensed from these containers in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the floss spool, floss generally dispenses very smoothly.
One shortcoming with this basic design is limited holding capacity of the container. While such packages can readily hold 50 to 75 yards of floss fiber, a significant increase in the amount of floss above this volume requires a redesign of the container. When W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., of Flagstaff, Ariz., introduced a floss package holding 200 yards of material, it opted for a cylindrical vial, with floss mounted on an upright spool loosely inserted within the cylindrical container. While it would be preferred to dispense the floss from the top of such a container (i.e., in a direction approximately parallel to the axis of the spool), it was discovered that the floss would not cleanly pay off the spool when the floss was fed through a hole in the top of the vial, becoming periodically tangled and jammed during pay off.
To solve this pay off problem, the container was designed to support the spool of floss in a centered position with the spool's top end mating with a unique cap on the end of the container. This cap was designed to include a recess in its center into which a projection from the spool seats while remaining free to spin around its axis. An annular groove around the recess in the cap allows floss to spin off the spool and through an opening in the cap. For attaching the cap to the container, the cap was designed with a snap fit attachment which mates with a formation on the inner wall of the container.
However, one shortcoming of this design is that the cap was sometimes too difficult to remove from the container and therefore not readily adapted for replacing the spool of floss should it become depleted. One easy solution was to make the cap removable from the container in an easy fashion. However, when the cap is not securely attached to the cylindrical container, it oftentimes is subject to unwanted removal therefrom when dispensing floss through the cap in the manner described above. The secure attachment of the cap to the container ensures that the spool is securely held within the container when removing floss from the spool whereby axial forces are applied to the spool and transferred to the cap.
The foregoing illustrates limitations known to exist in present floss dispensers. Thus, it is apparent that it would be advantageous to provide an improved floss dispenser directed to overcoming one or more of the limitations set forth above. Accordingly, a suitable alternative is provided including features more fully disclosed hereinafter.